By The Defender Staff
Moderna Launches mRNA Bird Flu Vaccine Trial After HHS Cancels Funding
Moderna is launching a large-scale clinical trial of a shot to combat bird flu in humans after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department had canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in funding previously committed to aid in vaccine development.
The company is developing the vaccine using messenger RNA (mRNA), which is the technology used in the most commonly administered coronavirus vaccines and was hailed during President Donald Trump’s first term as a major medical achievement. It has since come under intense scrutiny from Kennedy and other conservatives, and the Department of Health and Human Services last year announced a winding down of investments in 22 mRNA vaccine development projects.
Last May, HHS pulled millions of dollars that President Joe Biden’s administration had said it would provide to Moderna to accelerate mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccines amid an outbreak of bird flu in dairy cattle. The move delayed a large-scale clinical trial for several months as Moderna sought alternative funding sources, according to Chris Ridley, a Moderna spokesman.
Study on Maternal RSV Vaccine Flags Possible Risk, Calls for More Research
Vaccinating against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during pregnancy was not associated with an increased risk of preterm birth, or a host of other adverse outcomes, but may be linked to an increased risk of pregnancy-associated hypertensive disorders, according to a cohort study with a sequential surveillance design.
Risk of preterm birth among pregnant women who received the bivalent RSV prefusion F subunit-based vaccine was not elevated compared with a concurrent comparator group who received other vaccines or a historical comparator group vaccinated before the RSV vaccine was available.
However, increased risks were observed for pregnancy-associated hypertensive disorders in those who received the RSV vaccine compared with the concurrent and historical comparator groups, reported Ashley Michnick, PharmD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute in Boston, and colleagues, in JAMA Network Open.
Judge Postpones Oxycontin-Maker Purdue Pharma’s Sentencing to Let Opioid Victims Attend in Person
A judge on Tuesday delayed the criminal sentencing of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma in order to allow victims to attend the court proceeding in person.
U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo originally planned to hand down the sentence Tuesday during a court hearing conducted only by videoconferencing. But she said she changed her mind after seeing some victims of the opioid crisis protesting outside her courthouse in Newark, New Jersey. She said they should be allowed to attend in person, too, and moved the hearing to next Tuesday.
When it happens, Arleo is expected to order the company to forfeit $225 million to the Justice Department, clearing the way for the company to finalize a settlement of nearly all of the thousands of lawsuits it faces over its role in the opioid crisis.
The penalty was agreed to in a 2020 pact to resolve federal civil and criminal probes it was facing. If the judge signs off, other penalties will not be collected in return for Purdue settling the other lawsuits.
Pfizer-Funded 24-Month Safety Study Claims a ‘Favorable’ Profile — but Was Hero-Together Designed to Miss the Hardest Signals?
A study led by Emily C. O’Brien, Ph.D., at Duke Clinical Research Institute and published in Respiratory Medicine reports that Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2, showed a “favorable” long-term safety profile over 24 months in 9,518 participants.
The paper found an overall AESI rate of 13.65 per 1,000 person-years, with most events deemed non-severe and not requiring hospitalization. But the reassuring headline deserves tougher scrutiny. The cohort was young, disproportionately female, largely White, and relatively healthy. The primary analysis also relied on a self-controlled risk interval design that may be less sensitive to rare, delayed, diffuse, or difficult-to-adjudicate harms.
Most notably, the study’s own unadjusted analysis showed a significantly elevated AESI rate during risk intervals, only for that signal to vanish after age adjustment. That does not prove the vaccine is unsafe. It does raise a sharper question: was this study structured more to neutralize safety signals than to surface them?
US States Took Divergent Actions in Absence of Federal Covid Vaccine Guidance Last Respiratory Virus Season
The lack of updated federal vaccine recommendations early in the 2025-26 US respiratory virus season — and a statement in May 2025 by the Health and Human Services secretary advising against COVID vaccines for children and pregnant women — created uncertainty for states with vaccine regulations based on federal guidance, leading most to strengthen and/or weaken COVID-19 vaccine access, with long-term implications for future vaccine policy, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill led a systematic review of publicly documented vaccine-policy actions by all 50 states from April 1 to December 31, 2025, before and during the respiratory virus season.
The team characterized state actions as strengthening if they expanded or supported COVID-19 vaccine infrastructure or access or as weakening if they changed or limited policy mechanisms supporting vaccine infrastructure or access.
Amazon Launches GLP-1 Program as Gaps in Care Emerge
Amazon’s One Medical is rolling out a national GLP-1 program as demand for weight-loss drugs surges, the company announced Tuesday.
The boom in drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is reshaping obesity care — but also exposing gaps in how patients are treated.
One Medical executives told Axios some patients are arriving from other providers “malnourished” or on improper doses, highlighting risks when care isn’t closely managed.
The rise of telehealth GLP-1 providers has made access easier, but also raised questions about gaps in care and clinical oversight. Amazon’s push comes days after Walmart unveiled its own GLP-1 platform, underscoring how major retailers are racing to capture demand for weight-loss drugs, including new pill versions.
Amazon is positioning its approach as more integrated than many existing options, embedding GLP-1 treatment within primary care.
The post Moderna Launches mRNA Bird Flu Vaccine Trial After HHS Cancels Funding + More appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
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